The Lily Gilders
by Joseph H. Delaney
Illustration by Nicholas Jainschigg
“We could threaten to move our headquarters out of the country,” Rossi snarled. He paused, contemplatively, to savor the thought, then added, “That’d serve ’em right, with all the taxes we pay and all the jobs we supply—yeh!”
“I don’t think so, Mr. Rossi,” the lawyer countered. Joe Duffy had expected precisely that reaction—not those exact words, of course, but something dose. He didn’t like Martino Rossi to start with. Rossi had the temperament of a two-year-old and the morals of a pubic louse. Duffy endured Rossi only for the sake of the firm.
He knew then that if he didn’t immediately back this statement up with facts that even Rossi could comprehend there would be another of those distasteful outbursts like the one with which this conversation began.
“It’s not just your company that’s taking hits from the environmentalists, Mr. Rossi,” he said in the most soothing tone he could manage, “the heat’s on everybody. The movement is worldwide, and it’s gaining strength every day. If you were mining anywhere else but where you are it would be bad enough, but a smelting plant in the Amazon Basin is an anathema to these people. The public perceives this as a part of the destruction of the rain forest. They don’t like it.”
“My ore’s low grade,” Rossi screamed back at him. “It isn’t worth hauling out. I can’t make a profit unless I refine onsite. Besides, my deal was with the Brazilians. What business has the United States got interfering with that?”
“Interfering? Mr. Rossi, it was the Brazilians who sued you—”
“Yeh, but on account of that stupid treaty our fathead president just pushed through they can get at all my US assets if I lose. And you know I will. In their courts I have no chance. I say we should hit Uncle Sam back.”
“How? Look, Mr. Rossi, the treaty wasn’t directed just at you. It applies to everybody. Every other mining company in the basin is complying.”
“It’s unconstitutional,” Rossi bellowed. “It takes my property away without any compensation.”
“Treaties are supra-constitutional, Mr. Rossi. Even if this one wasn’t, the subject matter isn’t under US jurisdiction so you’re stuck with whatever rights the Brazilian law gives you. Maybe you ought to talk to them.”
“My people did that. They said the situation’s not negotiable. It’s just ‘shut down until the pollution is cleaned up.’ They expect me to pay for everything.”
Duffy didn’t even blink.
Enraged by this apparent lack of sympathy, Rossi raised his voice even louder “I didn’t do it all. Why should I pay for all of it?”
“I didn’t say I thought that was fair, Mr. Rossi. That’s a very good objection. You should raise it when you resume negotiations with the Brazilians.” He paused, as if to gather his thoughts. He wanted desperately to end the conference, preferably in such a wav that he would never have to talk to Rossi about it again. Sadly, if what he was about to suggest appealed to Rossi there would be at least one more such encounter.
“Tell you what,” he said. “I’m attending a seminar on environmental law next week over in England. There’ll be experts from all over the world, and people with similar problems. Some good ideas are certain to come out of it. So, don’t give up just yet. Wait a little while. You might not have to shut down.”
“I’m effectively shut down now. I’ve laid most of my miners off already.” He paused, then added caustically, “but instead of leaving, the in-grates are hanging around and picking through my ore for nuggets. They’re robbing me blind. It’s an outrage.”
Yeh, thought Duffy. How positively indecent of them not to just starve quietly. Tempted though he was, he didn’t comment. He promised to get in touch with the company’s scientific people after he got back, and seized the opportunity to escape.
Duffy was lucky this time. Rossi wasn’t around when he called the company headquarters to announce a promising prospect for a solution to the problem in Brazil. Winston Black took his call. Winston was a mining engineer, of course, but he also was an avid student of many related disciplines. He kept current in all of them as a sort of profit-oriented hobby.
Black listened with keen attention. “I’m not surprised this is a Japanese development, Joe. They’ve got more experience with mercurial contaminants than anybody. They had a whole bay poisoned and managed to clean it up pretty good. Of course, that had a fairly orthodox solution. It started out as a dredging operation, but since that stirred up a lot of other contaminants from the bottom they had to learn how to handle those as well.”
“I know, they told me. Ms. Ariko said that was a principal advantage of the biological process.”
“It’s hard to believe,” Black mused. “You say they do it with a peptide?”
“They use a variety of peptides, depending on what they re after,” Duffy answered. “The metals bind to these. The plants are then harvested, dried, and burned in an incinerator. The metals are extracted from the ash.”
“No, I didn’t mean I was surprised by the process, Joe. We know of lots of plants that do this. Locoweed’s one of them, so is jimson weed. In concentrating these metals the plant is merely protecting itself from getting poisoned. It uses the peptide to concentrate the stuff and then tucks it out of the way. A lot of the deciduous plants put their wastes into leaves, which fall off and are replaced.
“As a side benefit, the concentration of poisons helps some plants drive away pests. Some trees put it in the bark, which is also slowly discarded and replaced. Others route it to their heartwood, which isn’t living, where it remains locked up until the tree dies and decays.
“No, the part that surprises me is the figures these people claim for recovery. The proportions are far beyond anything I ever heard of before.”
“Obviously,” Duffy replied, “that’s where the engineering work came in. Ms. Ariko showed me slides of some really giant plants, great big water lilies, the biggest I’ve ever seen.”
“Yeh, I know, I’ve seen pictures of them on PBS. They’re big enough for birds to walk around on.”
“That impressed you?” Duffy was grinning. He handed Black a brochure. “Take a look at the modified strain their geneticists whipped up. This was a birthday party for Ms. Ariko, held in their lab at Yokosuka.”
Black gazed at it and let out a low whistle. There were fifteen or twenty people sitting around tables on one giant green pad, and they had plenty of room to spare.
“She said that was a little one,” Duffy beamed. “As big as their facilities could accommodate. It’s indoor, of course, because the plant is tropical and highly sensitive to temperature, but otherwise it’s tough stuff. That one is forty centimeters thick, and while most of its bulk consists of air cells it also has a thick, durable rind, strong enough to stand up to those spike heels the girls are wearing. The mature pads run up to six meters across.”
“Sounds like it might be tailor-made for us,” Black quipped, with a pretended tone of optimism. “So, what’s the catch?”
“I dunno that there is one,” Duffy replied. “True, it’s unproven on an industrial scale, but I’ve seen the figures on its chelating power. There’s no reason to question them.”
“You know how Rossi is,” Black lamented. “He wants everything his own way. If he couldn’t think of anything else to squawk about he’d complain about the way his feet were shaped. Did you discuss any specifics with Ms. Ariko?”
This was where Duffy started to hedge. “Uh, well, yes. As a matter of fact, I did.”
“So, what’s the pitch?”